My Latest Jewelry Creations!

Okay, here they are...pics of some of my new jewelry creations! I had a lot of fun coming up with designs for some of them. I like very simple designs and earth tones, but that's not to say that I can't make something out of pink and black with a little "bling" here and there!

I'm Baaaaack!

This post is going to be a short one. I just want everyone to know that I have not disappeared. Please give me another couple of days and I promise to have quite a few new photos posted of what's been keeping me busy lately!

I had my daughter, Jenny's, birthday (10/31)...her party (11/1)...her school's Fall Festival (11/7) of which I'm her class mom and was in charge of a scrapbooking basket to put together...and then a craft fair I had a table at on 11/14! Needless to say I've been BUSY! I'm finally not committed to anything "major" but of course I now have an amazing head cold to contend with. C'est la vie!

For this craft fair my table was about two thirds jewelry and one third Stampin' Up! creations. I'm really happy...my table did well...surprisingly so! I got a lot of compliments on my jewelry, so I was very excited. It's nice knowing that I'm not the only one who likes my stuff.

Here's a picture of me and my table.
Check in again by Wednesday and I'll definitely have all my pictures up. Thanks for sticking with me!

Halloween Scrapbook Page

Sorry I haven't posted for a while (I think I'm going to start every post this way!). I've been doing all kinds of projects...organizing projects...around my house. And between them and school starting I've had a hard time getting back on a schedule.



One of my projects was to finish a 12x12 Disney scrapbook from a trip my family went on in October 2006! Yes, two years ago...what can I say?! I find that doing my page layouts first and then going back to add the pictures is much easier for me. If I did a page, added some pictures and then embellishments I would feel like I hadn't accomplished anything by doing ONE page.



In the spring I did the entire layout. Then I went about printing ALL of the pictures that looked good. I printed a lot of them! (Better to be safe than sorry.) THEN I cropped them all on a different day. That was all in the spring. Then a few weeks ago I got the bug again and finally finished it...journaling and all!



We finally have a book to show off our trip. It was a BLAST! We went to Disney World in October and went to the "Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween". I have to say that I HIGHLY recommend going during October. Not too many kids have breaks during then so the traffic in the parks is low. The weather is spectacular and the idea of trick or treating with the characters also dressed up in costumes is too hard to resist!



Anyway, the point of this blog was to show you how I did my first "paper piecing" on one of the Halloween pages. I wanted something different that would pop off the page. I think it came out so cute!



First I chose the patterned paper I wanted to use for the witch's hat, cape, shoes and broom. I stamped the witch three times; once on the white cardstock I was using for the main image, then once on the orange paper so I could cut out the hat and finally on the striped paper so I could cut out the cape.



You can see this in the following three images:

Here I used my Stampin' Up! chalks and aqua painter to color in my "witch". Notice the shading to highlight and lowlight the image?

Then, using my tweezers and my 2-way glue pen I placed the pieces I had cut out over the main image. I also stamped the star and crescent moon onto a piece of Yo-Yo Yellow cardstock and cut them out.
























I went on to stamp my cauldron once on a piece of white cardstock for my main image and then stamped the portion with the frog on it on some Certainly Celery cardstock and cut him out.
























I also stamped the bubbles portion of the image onto some Almost Amethyst designer series paper. I painstakingly (with the emphasis on "pain") cut out even the tiniest bubbles. I colored in the cauldron using my aqua painter and chalks making sure to add highlights and lowlights.

To add some dimension I used my Crystal Effects to round out and glaze the frog's eyes and the bubbles in the cauldron. Then using my 18 gauge copper wire I made the cauldron's handle and ladle. I also cut a small piece of Creamy Caramel cardstock to glue onto the wire to show the "wooden" handle.

Then I cut out both main images and adhered them to my scrapbook page using Stampin' Dimensionals to make them "pop" off the page.

This was a lot of time spent to do this one little portion of my scrapbook, but it was worth it. The memories from this trip will stay with me always and this book will help the children to remember it as well!

Silver-Ring Slate Blue Necklace

I was feeling the need for a necklace with a particular look. Don't ask me what that "look" is called though. I wanted it to be a necklace people would notice, but that I wouldn't feel odd wearing. I'm not a BIG necklace kind of person. I love blue, especially slate blue, so my daughter (yes, I stole from her!) had a package of glass beads I had bought for her to make creations out of. However, she's a girl and girls like pink! Her loss is my gain.

I hit Michael's and found these really cute silver rings with the holes in the correct position for these beads. I used seed beads from the same set to fill in where the bigger beads didn't fill the silver rings in. I certainly didn't want anyone to see the wire in between and think I was a newbie (even though I am)!




The spirals I had made while practicing my wire-wrapping technique. My goal is to eventually purchase real sterling silver wire to duplicate these spirals and replace them in this necklace. I was really happy the way it came out, but the copper-filled wire I used is cheap and brings the look of the necklace down a notch. Live and learn, right?

Hope you like it too.

Too Much Of A Good Thing

I haven't posted in a few days because I've been working on yet another kind of project. Last year I sanded down my natural-colored kitchen table and stained it a dark walnut. I liked the way it came out, but I didn't have the gumption to attack the six matching chairs.

Last week I decided to tackle the remaining chairs...one chair at a time. I even decided I would take pictures of the major stages I was taking it through to share on this blog. HOWEVER...I hate the way the chair turned out! So, now I'm going to have to re-sand the sealer off the chair and paint it a dark brown. Right now I'm aggravated from that project and am taking time off from that...again!

So, here's what I made to make myself happy again..."Too Much Of A Good Thing". I used the Certainly Celery, So Saffron, Pretty in Pink and Whisper White cardstock from Stampin' Up! The stamp set is called "Time Well Spent"...also from SU!

I had some extra long envelopes from a Stamp-a-Stack I did, so I wanted to make a long card and this is what I came up with. I'd seen a similar card in one of the SU! catalogs and loved the layout. I punched holes into the So Saffron piece using a piercing tool and foam mat. I colored the images using my coordinating Stamp 'n Write Markers, cut out the butterfly and "popped" it using a Stampin' Dimensional. I tied a knot in my pink grosgrain ribbon and glued it on using Crystal Effects. The card still lacked some "punch" so I decided to go back with my Basic Black marker and line "stitches" around the images.

Now THAT made me happy to complete a project!

Amethyst Haute Couture

Here's a card I made yesterday. I had this in my mind for some reason and just had to make it before I forgot it. Again, this is all Stampin' Up! products. I used the following cardstock; glossy white, basic black and almost amethyst. The also used a piece of designer series paper in almost amethyst. The stamp set is an old hostest set called Haute Couture...LOVE this set!!! It's something I just had to have and bid on eBay for it and won! Woo hoo!

It's a standard size card; 5 1/2" x 4 1/4". I stamped the image using a Versamark pad onto the glossy white cardstock(it makes a watermark of the image), poured my silver embossing powder over and heated it using my heat gun. I colored in the dress using my almost amethyst marker. The trick here is to go over the image once, then come back to 'darken' the areas you want to have shadows on. I punched the corners of the image and small piece of black cardstock using my ticket corner punch, glued them together and then onto the almost amethyst cardstock. I popped this using Stampin' Dimensionals (foam dots).

I made the silver spiral using 16 gauge wire, tied a piece of black grosgrain ribbon on and voila! To make sure it stayed in place I used a dot of Crystal Effects to hold it down.

I always have to decorate my envelope to coordinate with the card. It makes the receiver excited to open this piece of mail first! Using my Aqua Painter and SU! chalks I colored in her hat, lips and cheeks.

That's it for today. Keep coming by to say hello & leave me some comments so that I know whether or not you've appreciated this post. Thanks!

Natural Necklace

So, about a month ago I saw a woman wearing a necklace that caught my eye. I asked her if she'd made it herself and her reply was 'no'. So, of course, being the kind of person I am I eyeballed it and mentally made note of how it looked. Later I went about trying to find the right components to make a similar style necklace and here is what I ended up with...

I used hemp for the necklace, silver spacer bead, Swarovski crystals, a silver bail, silver chain, jumprings and headpins. This "wood" bead is actually some kind of melamine or resin. I bought it for cheap at Michaels. What's amazing to me is to think of what this woman probably spent on a similar-looking necklace and I made it myself and for much less.

Tah tah for now!

Wire Jig Chandelier Earrings

Well, today I'm back to making jewelry. I recently bought a wire jig from Michaels to try out. I eventually want to get good enough at using it so I can buy some sterling silver wire. It would be a little too expensive to say "oops" every time I bent something the wrong way!

So, here it goes...

The wire I'm using is copper-filled and 18 gauge. The lower the number the thicker the wire is, the higher the number the thinner the wire is. The pegs for this jig can be placed wherever you want in the holes to create the design you're looking for.

Once you've got your design complete, pull the wire gently off the pegs and use wire cutters to snip the end off before you tuck it under or make your final loop.

Like my "anvil" below? ha ha! Here I'm hammering my wire form flat. It helps to strengthen it.

I chose my Swarovski crystals that I'd like to hang from the chandelier earrings. I'm using three 4mm bicones and one 6mm bicone for each earring. The findings I need are an earwire, three headpins and five jumprings. I'm making loops on each headpin. Here are varying stages on the dangles I'm making...

Below I am attaching the earwire to the chandelier with two jumprings...this way it will hang the proper way from my ear.

And here is the finished earring with dangles attached. Hope you like it. Off I go to make the second one...see you later!

Bonjour Magnolia Crayon-Resist Tutorial

The card that I posted yesterday..."Bonjour Magnolia"...was made using the crayon-resist technique. I attached a link to splitcoaststampers.com in case you wanted a more in-depth tutorial. However, I did my best to take a few pictures to show the process in creating this card. I want to note that I made an error in mentioning the green I used. It was Mellow Moss, not Certainly Celery...my bad!

Anyway, this first picture shows the majority of Stampin' Up! products that I used. If I left any out in the picture, I promise I will explain in detail what I used. First off I cut a 5 1/4" x 10 1/2" piece of Barely Banana card stock, folded it and sharpened the crease using a bone folder. The additional pieces cut were as follows: Mellow Moss 5" x 5", Regal Rose 4 3/4" x 4 3/4" and glossy white card stock at 4 1/2" x 4 1/2". There is an additional piece of glossy card stock to stamp the word "Bonjour" on...2" x 2" would be sufficient.

Using Stazon black ink stamp the word Bonjour (from the Carte Postale stamp set) onto the center of your small piece of glossy card stock and set aside. For a large stamp like "From The Garden" I prefer to flip the stamp over and ink it as shown below. This way I can be sure to get the stamp completely inked.

Then I place the 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" piece of white card stock, glossy side down onto the inked stamp and gently, but firmly rub over the back of the card stock to ensure that every part of the image is transferred onto it. Make sure not to let the card stock slide around on the stamp or you will end up with a very blurry image! To remove the card stock just pick up the stamp and flip it over. Again, this is to avoid a blurry image.

Your next step is to take an ordinary white crayon and highlight the areas of the stamp that you would like to have remain white. What happens is you will color over your image, then wipe the card stock with a tissue and it will remove any ink that is over the crayon highlights you colored. Now be sure to have a light hand in this! You want to avoid pressing the crayon too hard...it will look odd once you color it. Try to imagine a light-source over your object...in this case mine would be the sun. Look at the textures of the flower and leaves and see where they would have light bouncing off of them.

To color on glossy card stock you'll want to use either your classic ink pads or your Stampin' Write Markers. (Chalks will not work!) To use your ink pads, just press firmly on the outside of the pad between your fingers and then when you open it you will find a small pool of ink left on the inside of the cover. Here I used an Aqua Painter with my Mellow Moss ink pad. You can also use Blender Pens or a watercolor brush, whichever you feel most comfortable with.

I colored in the leaves without worrying about where I used the white crayon. And because I don't have a Barely Banana ink pad I used my Stampin' Write Marker to color in the petals of the flower. Just stay in the lines!

Next I used a tissue to gently wipe off the ink from the crayon-highlighted areas.

Then I used by Regal Rose marker to color in the area near the center of the flower.

I started to use my ticket corner punch on the corners here, but then I realized...

that I wanted a larger area taken away. So instead I used my Slit punch...ingenious, huh? (Yeah, I know, I'm not the first one to come up with that idea!)

Okay, so now back to the word Bonjour that you stamped at the beginning. I used my Color Spritzer tool and Regal Rose marker to speckle the card stock with color. However, you can use a sponge to do a similar effect.

Now center the word in the middle of the 1 3/8" Circle Punch. Remember to always punch your images by looking at the back side of the punch. This way you can see exactly what you'll be punching out and won't have any surprises! Then I just lined all around the edge of the circle using my Regal Rose marker to finish it.


Using a glue stick I adhered the first three layers of card stock. Don't glue it onto your Barely Banana card stock yet because you need to punch holes in the four corners. Add your gold brads next. What I like to do is to give one little smack to the back of the brads using my small hammer. This way they'll be really flat in the back and won't stick up once you glue this final layer onto your card.

To finish off this card I stuck a Stampin' Dimensional onto the back of the Bonjour circle to pop it up on the front for added depth. And I always decorate my envelopes as well, so I used my markers one last time to color directly onto a floral stamp in the Carte Postale stamp set and stamped it four times without recoloring the stamp. This way it gradiated up the front of the envelope and made it look so soft.

Well, that's it! I hope you enjoyed my card tutorial. Whew...what a project. Now I understand what goes into making these kinds of tutorials. My hats off to those of you who do such an amazing job on your blogs! I hope you enjoy mine, even in it's infant state and continue to come back to check out my latest projects. And, again, all comments are welcome. Bye for now!